Killjoys S02E08 “Full Metal Monk” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on Syfy, new episodes every Tuesday, 8pmWriter: Sean ReycraftDirector: Paulo Barzman

Dutch leaves Johnny in his cage.

Essential Plot Points:

Dutch has come to visit Johnny in his cage at the Spring Hill Bunker. He’s not in great shape. She’s disappointed in him for abandoning the team, and working behind her back. She sends a message to Pawter to come free him, and then leaves.

In Old Town, Turin and D’avin are looking up Sixes, they run into one who doesn’t really want to talk to them. He’s about to strangle D’avin when his eyeballs pop out, all over D’avin’s face. Seems D’avin has learnt some new tricks.

Still looking for clues at to Aneela’s whereabouts, Dutch and D’avin go to visit Olen at the Scarback monastery.

Pawter and a now-freed Johnny are investigating the wall around Old Town. Pawter thinks it’s to do with “execution eugenics”, killing off the weak so that only the strong are left.

Jelco holo-calls Delle Seyah Kendry. She tells him to “activate the wall”, even though it’s ahead of schedule.

At the Scarback monastery, Olen is a bit broken; he tried to kill his brother. Dutch talks to him, but when she mentions the name Aneela, he freaks out, seeing visions and shouting, “Devil!”

Olen draws something on the walls of his room: symbols, The Old Word, like Alvis found on the skin from the monk in the mossipede mines. Alvis can read enough to see Arkyn, and plague. Olen tells them it’s a map to where he’s seen people drowning in pools of green.

In Old Town, Pawter and Johnny are analysing blood samples they’ve taken from the good folk of Westerley, but there’s no trace of any toxins. Pawter is meeting Arune soon, an ally within the Nine, but she needs evidence.

Landing on Arkyn, Dutch, D’avin and Alvis find another of Khlyen’s mirrored cubes. Neither Alvis nor D’avin can get inside it, but it opens up for Dutch. The inside of the cube is empty… because it’s actually a lift, going straight down. They arrive in an abandoned facility.

Alvis finds a (slightly) less dead body. It looks like a monk. He’s behind a wall similar to the one around Old Town.

At The Royal everyone is happy, and Pree is singing. Pawter and Johnny go up to her old office to work out a plan: they need a distraction to stop the convoy. But Pawter gets distracted and plays dress-up, which distracts Johnny (it’s a very distracting outfit!). Pawter is feeling good, really good, in fact.

Alvis talks to the old monk, but he sees Dutch, shouts something that sounds like “brata” (apparently it means devil) and runs off.

He thinks Dutch is Aneela. The old monk is a Six, a feisty one. D’avin tries to pacify him with his new powers, but just about pops his eyeballs out. Alvis helps D’avin calm down, which calms the monk down. Until he sees Dutch again, at which point she manages to knock him out.

Arune appears at The Royal, which confuses Pawter and Johnny; they’re acting strange, like they’re high. Arune has come to see the evidence, but Pawter and Johnny just giggle at him. They do manage to tell him they’ve worked out that the Company are going to poison the rations, though.

With the monk restrained, D’avin tries again to pacify him, with more success this time. Alvis translates for Dutch, telling the monk she isn’t Aneela but he doesn’t believe her. He thinks she’s come back to finish him off. Dutch cuts her hand to prove she isn’t a Six. Dutch shows the old monk a picture of Khlyen, whom the monk recognises. He says that Aneela called him by a different name. Father.

The monk wants Dutch to kill him; he’s still in pain and has suffered enough. Aneela killed all the other monks, he wants her (Dutch) to kill him as well.

Alvis reads him the last rites before Dutch uses a dreadnought to kill him.

Back in Old Town it seems that the wall is giving off drugs, making the people happy and complacent, but Jelco has something which makes him immune. Jelco shoots Arune, wipes his prints from the gun and places it in a very confused Pawter’s hand.

Jelco takes a picture of Pawter and Johnny with Arune’s dead body; he plans to send it the the heads of the Nine families.

Back aboard Lucy, Dutch worries that she might actually be Aneela.

In Old Town, everyone is happy. Jelco appears on screens, telling the people they’re going to be air-dropping premium rations for them, putting an end to hunger.

When Dutch has a cold, everybody suffers.

Review:

It’s all gone a bit Scanners in this latest eye-popping instalment of Killjoys. And when we say eye-popping, we mean it literally, as D’avin’s plasma wizardry reaches the next level. While the episode opener is great fun, the rest of the episode doesn’t quite live up to the (admittedly very high) standard set by previous season entries. We’re no closer to getting any answers either. In fact this episode serves to mostly muddy the waters.

Delle Seyah Kendry makes a very brief appearance to tell Jelco to “activate the wall” (thankfully this doesn’t involve an appearance by Dale Winton). The closing-off of Old Town is part of her fiendish machinations. Her evil plan seems to involve making everyone in Old Town so high that they don’t care what’s going on, and then poison them. Where this fits in with enhanced learning and genetic bombs we aren’t sure.

All work and no play…

Pascale Langdale over-eggs it somewhat as Jelco gets the upper hand again, coming off more like a demented game show host than a machiavellian villain. Pawter and Johnny high is actually quite sweet, though – happy in their little bubble. Shame it won’t last.

“Twelve went to fight the devil on Arkyn”: so reads Alvis’s riddle, which now seems to have its solution. There are ten monk bodies in the facility under Arkyn, one was found in the mossipede mines, and now the twelfth is found still alive. And the devil is Aneela, who turns out to be Khlyen’s daughter. Which means that Dutch looks just like Khlyen’s daughter, which again doesn’t really explain anything.

All in all it’s just another electrical hexagon thingy in the wall.

All the usual elements are here, including some of the best lines this season, but the episode as a whole doesn’t quite gel. It doesn’t have enough substance to stand on its own, yet it doesn’t add enough to the major plot arcs to sustain it either. The storyline concerning the wall feels somewhat fractured, and it’s starting to detract from the main plot arc with the Sixes and Khlyen. Doubtless everything is connected, but at the moment it doesn’t quite feel like it is. Killjoys is at its best when everyone is together, fighting the good fight. There are only two episodes left this season, and we hope they start to bring things – and people – back together.